Seven European countries suspend AstraZeneca vaccine

Denmark, Norway, Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxembourg have all suspended all or part of the AstraZeneca vaccine roll-out.

The seven European countries suspended the administration of the vaccine following reports of blood clots in some people who have so far received the shots.

The suspension is a precautionary measure even as the authorities of these countries continue to investigate the reports however, this presents fresh doubts for skeptics in Nigeria where the vaccine is also going through a roll-out.

To allay the fears of the public, President of the country, Muhammadu Buhari, and his Vice, Osinbajo, took shots of the vaccine in front of the camera quite recently.

While a lot of Nigerians could easily dispel conspiracy theories from the 5G debacle to the mark of the beast warnings and Bill Gates’ infamous alleged plan to kill Africans that surfaced following the break out of the virus in 2020, this update on the side effect of the vaccine leaves more doubt in the minds of the people.

You may also like to read: Does 5G affect your health and cause the spread of Coronavirus? We have the correct answers!

While the reports on the AstraZeneca vaccine are still under investigation, here’s what we know about what’s available so far…

What are blood clots?

Blood clots or thrombus can be a healthy response to injury intended to prevent bleeding but it can be dangerous when it blocks blood flow through healthy blood vessels, a process called thrombosis.

For thrombosis, a blood clot forms inside a blood vessel and obstructs the normal flow of blood through the circulatory system. It can happen in veins or arteries and the former causes congestion of the affected part of the body while the latter affects the blood supply and leads to damage of the tissue supplied by that artery.

There are several factors that can cause blood clots including stroke, heart failure, shock, obesity, trauma, surgery, injuries, old age among others. What caused the blood clots in 22 of the recipients of the vaccine isn’t public information as of now.

Denmark, Norway, Austria and others suspending AstraZeneca vaccine raises doubts

On Thursday 11 March 2021, Danish health authorities suspended all AstraZeneca vaccinations for two weeks after a 60-year old woman who had been vaccinated formed a blood clot and died. “There have also been other reports of serious cases of blood clots among people vaccinated with AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine”, the Danish Health Authority said in a statement, according to France 24.

However, the health ministry added that it has not been determined if there is indeed a link between the vaccine and the blood clots reports. The suspension as mentioned earlier is simply a precaution.

Yet, after Norway followed with its own suspension of all AstraZeneca vaccinations, public doubts seemed to escalate. On Twitter, quite a number of people are already showing their concerns about the vaccine.

Denmark suspends use of AstraZeneca vaccine after patient dies with blood clot

Recently Buhari & Osinbajo took the vaccine on national TV to create confidence in people. imagine Nigeria that can’t invest in education talk-less of science are putting their citizens life at risk

- IFA FUNSHO (@funshographix) March 11, 2021

This is the vaccine Buhari is deceiving some Nigerians he took? If you allow him scam you again, that’s your problem. Even South Africa has suspended it. pic.twitter.com/E4EOUjhCaZ

- Comrade Deji Adeyanju (@adeyanjudeji) March 7, 2021

About 8 European countries including Denmark have suspended the use of AstraZeneca vaccine due to blood clotting which led to death and injuries.

3.9m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine arrived Nigeria last week.

- E (@iamOkon) March 11, 2021

Additionally, Austria had earlier announced that it suspended the use of a batch of AstraZeneca vaccines after a 49-year-old nurse died of “severe blood coagulation problems” days after receiving a jab.

Four other European countries - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Luxembourg - have also suspended the use of vaccines from this batch, which was sent to 17 European countries and consisted of one million jabs.

AstraZeneca vaccine ‘OK’?

Meanwhile, despite the suspension of the vaccine in a number of places, some countries are still optimistic about the vaccine’s efficacy and are not continuing with the rolling-out of shots.

For example, on Thursday, 11 March 2021, Spain’s health ministry claims that no case of blood clots related to AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine have been reported so far so administratin of the shots continues. Spanish Health Minister Carolina Darias, however, conceded that she had been informed of cases of blood clots among recently vaccinated people in Austria.

The UK government has also defended the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, The Guardian says.

Prime minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman spoke to reporters: “We’ve been clear that it’s both safe and effective… and when people are asked to come forward and take it, they should do so in confidence. And in fact, you’re starting to see the results of the vaccine programme in terms of the [lower] number of cases we’re seeing across the country, the number of deaths, number of hospitalisations.”

Investigations still ongoing

Also, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced that it is still evaluating the situation. It said in a statement on Wednesday, 10 March 2021, that the batch of AstraZeneca vaccines used in Austria was likely not responsible for the nurse’s death.

However, it added that 22 cases of blood clots were reported on 9 March 2021 among more than three million people vaccinated in the European Economic Area. Other health experts agree with the EMA’s statement arguing that there was little evidence to suggest the AstraZeneca vaccine should not be administered.

Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said “this is a super-cautious approach based on some isolated reports in Europe,” as quoted by REUTERS.

He also added, “the problem with spontaneous reports of suspected adverse reactions to a vaccine are the enormous difficulty of distinguishing a causal effect from a coincidence.” Evans further explained that the Covid-19 disease was very strongly associated with blood clotting.

AstraZeneca is not keeping quiet about the bad publicity that its vaccine seems to e gathering of late. The company released a statement on Thursday, defending the safety of its vaccine. It said that it had been extensively studied in human trials and its peer-reviewed data had confirmed the vaccine was generally well tolerated. This, however, isn’t enough to calm the public’s frayed nerves.

For Nigerians, the president and his vice have taken the vaccine on live TV and so far, they have reported no adverse symptoms. Their public move had been to allay fears that many had about the virus and it had appeared to work until the reports of ‘blood clots’ surfaced.